


Rationing

by Accal1a



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 06:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3886453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/pseuds/Accal1a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jasper and Monty give up their rations to get each other birthday presents every year and have been doing so for as long as they can remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rationing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jasbaejordan](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jasbaejordan).



> Birthday Fic for Jasbaejordan - love you!

Birthdays on the Ark were an odd affair. 

No-one had much because everything was based on people’s needs rather than wants. Marking the passage of time was seen as frivolous. This didn’t stop the tradition from dying though and people always came up with creative ways to show how much they cared for their loved ones.

Some people made things; other people wrote heartfelt messages or poems; occasionally there were thefts of high-value items and the requisite punishments for those thefts far out-weighed the giftees want for them; and there was always the black market, for those things that weren’t illegal, but were rationed and therefore scarce.

Monty and Jasper didn’t have to worry about these things. They’d been surprising each other with gifts, swopped for rations, for years and it was so much a part of them that they didn’t even realise they were doing it anymore, didn’t even realise why they were doing it. 

It became a bit of a running joke with those they swopped rations with. Every year, a week before their birthdays, they arrived and had almost exactly the same conversation.

“Hello, I have one day’s rations, can I swop it for…”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, please.”

“Here you go then, see you next year.”

Then Monty or Jasper would grin, blush and run off with their new item, hopeful that the other one would find it as wonderful as they did.

It was never a disappointment, never a waste of rations, to see that grin on the other person’s face when they received their gift was enough to squash down any and all worry about whether the right thing had been chosen.

The year Monty gave Jasper his goggles, Jasper couldn’t stop touching them, running his hand around the band and tracing the front of the goggles around the eye pieces. When he put them on his head, his hair sticking every which way, Monty laughed and Jasper thought it was the best sound he’d ever heard. 

Jasper often brought Monty pieces of computers or, the one year he was actually amazingly lucky and found him an old not working computer. It had cost him two days rations, not one, but it was absolutely worth it for the way Monty’s eyes lit up when he saw it; stroking the plastic casing and muttering that he was sure he could fix it up and make it work, which he did.

After they’d been arrested, they couldn’t trade their rations for anything because they didn’t fully have their own rations to trade; they were just fed in a big canteen and didn’t have to scan their ID chips. 

As Jasper’s birthday approached, Monty got more and more withdrawn and sad. He knew that there was nothing that he could do about it, locked up as they were but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was failing as a friend.

When Jasper’s birthday arrived (and seventeen seemed so old for some reason) it didn’t matter. Jasper bounded over to Monty’s side of the cell and plonked himself down on his cot; prodding Monty awake until he couldn’t ignore Jasper’s jabbing finger anymore. Monty apologised for not having any gifts to give him and Jasper looked at him oddly for a second before bursting out laughing and exclaiming that if that was why Monty was acting weirdly for the last week he was an idiot.

Despite that, Jasper was similarly upset on the lead up to Monty’s birthday, although that particular worry was quickly over shadowed by the fact that they were plummeting to Earth in a spaceship. 

All Monty wanted on his actual birthday that year was for Jasper to wake up, to not succumb to his wounds, to just be okay. When his wish was granted, he found he didn’t have the words to show how relieved he was and just clasped Jasper’s hand instead, trying to convey all feeling into that move, he thought Jasper understood but he passed out so quickly he wasn’t sure.

A year later, when Jasper’s birthday came round again, Monty wasn’t sure he was allowed to give Jasper a present, considering they were still not on speaking terms. The chasm that was Monty’s chest whenever he thought about that day and the subsequent ramifications was so deep and so raw that he could barely breathe sometimes.

Monty left a small, worn stone just inside the flap of Jasper’s tent. It was oddly shaped enough that Jasper would know that it was a gift but still a stone so that if he wanted to ignore it, he could very well pretend it had just been kicked into his tent by accident. Monty didn’t hear anything from Jasper, either positive or negative.

When Monty’s birthday came round again he found a small bundle of wires inside his tent and no-one seemed to know how it got there. Monty knew though and he let a small glimmer of hope fill the deep hole inside him. Baby steps.

It went on like this for another three years, neither of them speaking to each other but communicating in small, insignificant to anyone else, gifts.

In year four, Monty left a pretty shell that he’d found on one of his many walks. The ground was safe now, there being some sort of truce with the grounders (though Monty didn’t know the ins and outs of the treaty and didn’t care). If it meant that they weren’t trapped inside the fence then he was happy, the camp starting to feel like another cage before that.

Monty entered his tent on his birthday, hoping and expecting to see a small gift on the ground. When he didn’t, his heart broke anew and tears sprung up in his eyes and threatened to fall. He wanted nothing more than to throw himself on his bed and cry himself into some sort of oblivion. 

He took one step forwards to do so and that was when he took note of the form who was sitting on his bed, long legs spread and propped on the floor, elbows on knees and head hanging between. He’d have known that silhouette anywhere – though that didn’t mean he wasn’t surprised it was there.

“Jas?”

Jasper looked up from where he was staring resolutely at the floor. His nerve going slightly when faced with what he had intended to do.

He stood then, quickly and crossed the small distance between them. Taking Monty in a bruising embrace that left them both a little breathless afterwards.

Monty just stared at him after Jasper had extricated himself, not sure what to say.

Jasper seemed similarly afflicted and started to fidget under the scrutiny.

Monty was about to open his mouth to say something again, when Jasper spoke instead.

“Happy Birthday, Monty.” 

Monty didn’t think anything he’d ever heard was as amazing as those three words. Every gift, every computer part, every tiny wire seemed pointless and insignificant when faced with that phrase.

Jasper could feel Monty staring at him, feel his wonder and love emanating from his small form. He’d missed Monty, even as he was angry with him, knew that eventually he was going to forgive him but not knowing how or when it was going to happen.

That morning, he’d woken up, realised what day it was and suddenly it was as if all of the hurt and pain he’d felt about Maya; about Mount Weather; about fighting for his life every damn day for the first two months on this planet; was gone. In its place was a longing so strong for Monty that he hadn’t quite known what to do about it.

They had a lifetime to figure it out though, nothing was going to separate them again.


End file.
